Good morning, fam.
Assuming we don't lay a third egg in Norfolk (which would be grounds for dissolving the football program on the spot), I'm headed to the Rutgers game with a first-timer in tow. I want to give him the full experience.
We will be traveling down from a conference in Harrisonburg that wraps up Saturday morning. What time do folks think is a realistic departure? Game is 330pm (the best kick imo) and Google maps says 2 hrs and 15 minutes. I'm wondering what recent experience has been traveling 64/81 on GameDay? It has been a long time since I drove that route the day of and I imagine things have changed.
Also, how is traffic from CLT to Blacksburg on GameDay? That will my route going for the other games this year.
Thanks fam!
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take back roads if you can and leave as soon as possible. You're probably fine on 81s until about Roanoke and then you might want to consider taking route 460 or 785 the rest of the way in
100% agree. If you can take Blacksburg Road up from by the old location of The Home Place, it is so much easier.
I concur. I grew up in Covington, so we used to go through Catawba all the time. Better views if you ask me.
The Homeplace is gone, but there is a pretty cool small brewery on Blacksburg Rd as you make your way through that does growler fills. It's called Solstice Farm Brewery
*My parents, also Hokies, run it so I apologize if this breaks community guidelines
785 = Blacksburg Road - just for clarity
It's always a crapshoot since you have no idea what idiot won't put their cellphone down, causing a crash that backs up the highway for miles.
But anecdotally, for the Marshall game, I had some friends drive down from the DC area last Saturday for the Marshall game. They left around 8:30am and didn't experience any major traffic the whole way down. Last year we had more friends from the DC area come down for several reasons, including home football games. Sometimes their trip went well with little traffic, other times they hit big backups between Staunton & Harrisonburg, or between Salem & Roanoke where all the construction is underway.
Leaving as early as you can is always the best bet, IMO.
Any VT fan/alum knows that road is a crapshoot and often a shit show. There is one major road in that part of the state that goes north/south. It's loaded with trucks, and they often slow things to a crawl trying to go 1 mph faster than the truck in front of them. Also- a crash on that road- you are fucked. I was behind one for 3 hours once with nowhere to go.
Thanks. Between Salem and Roanoke was my big concern. Haven't been through that way on GameDay in about a decade. Was hoping construction had finished and gotten better.
It has not finished, and it has not gotten better. ~sincerely, a current Roanoker
If I can't be there the night before, I always try to roll into Blacksburg 4.5-5 hours before kickoff and typically don't have much of an issue.
As DC mentioned above, the trucks muck things up here and there and an accident can really suck, so pay attention to your GPS.
Exacty! Gives you a good 3-3.5+ hours to tailgate and still have time for leisurely 30 min walk to stadium; time to get through the gates before the big crush, and still be at your seats by 30 minutes before kickoff. We started tailgating at 545am for Vandy and about noon for Marshall. Gonna try to be there by 1030-11 for Rutgers 330 kickoff.
This is the correct way - for an 8pm kickoff, show up and start tailgating at 6 am. Crack your first beer at 6:01. Tell yourself you'll eat something after the first beer, but that becomes two and eventually six. You miss breakfast completely, and after being many beers deep, you inhale something for lunch. Continue with beer and eventually switch to liquor. Eventually you get tired of the lines for the porta John's and just start peeing in between your open car doors. By kickoff you're completely passed out, sitting in your own piss, or both. You miss the game and are sitting in the parking lot. Master tailgating plan /s
there was a time in history where I would be much more interested in the football than the tailgating. These days, I think I'd rather tailgate through the game than go to it
If I were yall, I'd eat breakfast and then leave, preferably before 9. I imagine yall have a place to tailgage? If not there is a fan tailgate we call the 'Hokie Village' that's on the lacrosse practice fields right behind the West stands. This would also allow your newbie to see the 'Hokie Walk' which is the players walking into the stadium about 2.5 hours before gametime. It's a neat thing to see at least once.
As already stated here, check your gps religiously as you're driving. I81 is a fuster cluck and especially on gamedays
Coming from CLT is typically not as bad. Obviously you still have to contend with the random accident that can happen anywhere, but there's significantly less mountains for trucks to climb so it doesn't get backed up as much.
Thanks. Yes. Family has had season tickets for 30+ years, but we were local until recently. Parents live in SC now so I don't have my Friday night pitstop 20 minutes out anymore.
Would suggest getting a charter plane and flying into the executive airport. Avoid traffic altogether.
I know this was a joke, but I decided to see how much it would cost... Best deal I could find for Atlanta (my home town) direct to Blacksburg for a day was ~$30k for 7 seats. Which is way cheaper than I expected (though still quite far out of my price range).
There is an "affordable" charter airline that operates out of phoenix now- to LA, Denver, Vegas, SF, etc. by that I mean- its a small plane, and you leave from the tarmac and its much more flexible than commercial. Right now it's comparable to a first class cost ticket - 2-3K round trip.
Interesting. I feel like if you're flying from a major airport to a major airport, there's no point, unless you make so much money than saving a few hours of travel time justifies the cost. But if you could fly direct to a small airport like Blacksburg, and you're saving a ton of hassle, I guess I could justify-ish it.
My FIL is a pilot, and we've sort of joked about what if my MIL/FIL, BIL/SIL, and my wife/I all go in and buy a Cessna 402 for like $300k, and just have him fly us whenever we need to go somewhere. The problem is everything else associated with owning a plane - maintenance, storage, gas, etc.
To your first point... each time I fly now, I hate it more. I used to not mind it. Now? people are so shitty, so selfish, etc. They invade your space, they take 10 minutes to sit down, they carry a 3rd huge fake louis bag on because they can, etc. Fucking rude. The less assholes I have to deal with the better. So to me that charter might be worth it.
~VPIhokieME
nothing makes me realize how aeful people are more than flying. Baggage claim? Better be 0.1 inches from the carousel so nobody can see
I have a somewhat related question: where the heck should I park?
I'm going down for Homecoming, staying in Dublin, and would like to go into town on Friday (to show my wife around campus) and Saturday for the game.
It's been so long since I've been and not crashed somewhere nearby I don't remember where I can park.
I typically park at someone's house for $20ish along Edgewood Lane. Its an easy walk. Busses are free on gamedays too so parking at the un-gucci Kroger is easy but getting back is not fast.
Honestly, the last time I was to a game in Blacksburg, we just parked on the street for free way up on Washington or Lee Street or some such. Before you get to the permit areas. Friend and I had no problem walking a couple of miles and enjoyed the exercise and fresh air. As well as seeing how much the town had changed and how much it had stayed the same.
Before we had season parking pass, we did this several times. Drove through Catawba or Ironto, came up to about 5-6 blocks before main and saw a house with sign for parking for @0. Literally pulled off street to the edge of the yard and tailgated out of the trunk of my car. The kids at the house shared their Ciroc with us too.
Otherwise we parked in lot 20 or the Prices Fork garages for a bit before going to lot 18 about 5 years back. Even though it's a hike, it's worth having a guaranteed place to park even without specific assigned spot.
Standard advice:
Go on Friday night, and skip the Saturday wrap up.
Oh yeah. That's always the move. Work conference in Harrisonburg until late Friday/early Saturday am.
I live in MD and my wife's family is down in Wythe County, so I've been making the trip down 81 at least once per month for the last 15 years - I haven't made the drive on a game day in a while, but I'd check if JMU has a home game that weekend (or VMI to a lesser degree), as well. You'll ALWAYS hit backups in Harrisonburg, Staunton, Lexington, and Roanoke/Salem like clockwork. Typically it's about 2-2.5 hours between Blacksburg and Harrisonburg in my experience, so I'd say go on the side of caution and assume 2.5 plus potential additional slowdowns for football traffic.
Like others said, Rt. 11 is your friend, and if traffic is really back from Roanoke south, you can take 785 or 624from Catawba into the backside of Blacksburg. 252 can also be a secondary option to get from Staunton to Lexington as well, if needed.
Sooooo you wanna move closer to your wife's family and do civil engineering for my company?
I commute to Blacksburg from Wythe county
Funny you should say that - I've threatened to take a PM position with the school! What field of civil are you? I've got my structural PE but work for a contractor now.. Actually working on a project on campus currently, so I'll be in the area even more for the next little while. Just got an offer/promotion from my current company though to move to Richmond to take over that branch, so I'm probably not going anywhere for a while.
My structural engineer is about to retire and a need one in a bad way. Need more than one. But one as a minimum.
The company is ZMM architects, if you want to stalk. But don't reach out through the generic emails on the website, if you have any interest. I'll give you contact info.
Wait a minute, an architecture firm with an actual engineer on staff. I don't think that is allowed. I have to look at the architecture plans and tell them they are smoking crack.
It's worse than that. I actively try to pimp the architectural staff out to the engineers so that everyone gets a better understanding of everything involved.
Haha good to know! I'm going to see how this whole promotion situation is going to work out for me, but I'll definitely keep that in the back of my mind if it goes sideways.. I wouldn't hate living and working in SWVA one bit.
Well, should you ever decide you have an interest, let me know.
Wythe county, being the megalopolis it is, is one of those places where everyone knows everyone, or knows someone else who does. I'm pretty sure I know the local connections. I can shoot you a message on another platform any time.
yea, I appreciate it!
And yes, that is what I've learned. My wife grew up in the Max Meadows/Ft Chiswell area, but she has family all over Wythe, Bland, and Smyth counties. Seems like no matter where we go down there we run into someone either she or her parents know because they're originally from the area too.
ZMM is a damn good design firm.
I've come up this way for every VT football game I've ever attended in Blacksburg. It is almost never bad in terms of traffic on the way in. My understanding is that the majority of the game day traffic is coming from the east (Roanoke, Richmond, 757) or from NOVA. Coincidentally, I think Billy Ray talked about this on the most recent episode of Sons of Saturday because he came up from Charlotte to the game last week.
Another reason CLT > RVA
I've lived in both for 5 years. I'm allowed to say it.
Idk, when i was a season ticket holder we always left about two hours early because 81 sucks especially around Slownoke.
I'm only 20 minutes from Harrisonburg if that helps
In terms of parking, as others noted there are a ton of private lots that offer parking. If you want to spend time downtown, the churches beside PK's offer parking for $20 and you can tailgate there. Works great if you're going to eat and have a few drinks downtown before the game, though walking back after sucks. You can also park in the commuter lot off of West Campus Drive near the Duck Pond for $30. If you're tailgating in this area this is a good option as well.
Thanks. I'm good on parking. We've had spot the second house up from the stadium on Southgate drive for 20+ years. I'm in the first spot on the left off the driveway into the back yard. Right by the fence. Usually in my black GMC pickup. Come say hi, drink some turkey rye, and reminisce about what used to be.
Park at the golf course and pay the green fee to park there all day, then walk over to lot 18. We did that for a few years before we opted for parking passes.
I can't help with intel about traffic on 81 because we come up from Raleigh. When we're heading out, we like to take Price's Fork, etc. out to Dublin and get on 81 there. Usually the worst of the traffic will have broken up by then and we typically don't have any issues between there and 77.
Made the trip from H'burg many times. I ALWAYS left much earlier than I felt like I needed to. I much prefer the realization that I'm there far too early than the stress of being stuck in I81 traffic.
Thank y'all for all the tips. My parking spot info is in a post above. Stop by and have a beverage on the way in if you come down Southgate.
I drive the 30 mile stretch of I-81 just below Harrisonburg quite often. I'd say there is a wreck in that stretch like 25% of the time on the weekends. And that's just the one stretch.
Definitely check Google Maps before you go if you aren't running it the whole trip. Sometimes I run mine the whole time and it fails to alert me about upcoming slowdowns, but if I kill it and restart it mid-trip it will then tell me a different route that avoids accidents, so maybe do that too just to be safe.